The Triwizard Writing Competition
by Natascope
Summary: AU. Harry ends up back in his fourth year, and if he is going to be accused of cheating to enter the Triwizard Tournament, by George (and Fred), he is going to cheat. Crackfic.


I do not, have not, will never, and will have never owned Harry Potter.

* * *

A/N: This is for Season V of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, finals round #2

Team & Position: Caerphilly Catapults, Beater 1.

Base Prompt: Name, Place, Animal, Thing. The characters, places, animals and objects must play a role in the story, in some way or the other. All four do not have to be heavily featured, but all four must have some meaning and relevance, even if they are only mentioned in passing. (Note: the characters given don't have to be the protagonist as long as they play an important enough role.)

Set: Dennis Creevey, Dining Hall, Dungbeetle, Dessert

Optional Prompts:

3\. (location) Hogwarts

10\. (quote) Bloody hell! - Ron Weasley

* * *

Harry opened his eyes. The room was dark, and the sound of others' snoring brought a smile to his face. Taking a quick look around, he saw the Gryffindor dormitory he had grown so used to through the years.

He got out of bed and dug through his trunk looking for his planner. Finding it, he saw that he had ended up exactly when he meant to. With an even wider grin, he pulled out his invisibility cloak and draped it over himself, disappearing from view.

* * *

The dining hall was filled with excitement as everyone was anxiously awaiting the Goblet of Fire's selections for the Triwizard Tournament. The only exception to this was Harry Potter.

Harry sat, calmly eating his dinner, ignoring the excitement around him. After all, he had seen the tableau before. He also knew that while everyone was excited now, in just a few minutes, everyone would be utterly confused.

Seeing a treacle tart on the dessert tray, Harry managed to grab it before the food disappeared, leaving the golden plates empty. The room was plunged into silence as Dumbledore stood and moved next to the Goblet.

"In just another minute the Goblet will make its selections," Dumbledore said, his voice managing to fill the room without coming across as loud. With a clap of his hands, the lighting in the dining hall dimmed to the point where the Goblet was providing most of the light for the room.

A soft buzz began to build up amongst the excited student body. Up and down the Gryffindor table, Harry heard his housemates wishing Angela luck on being chosen. He chuckled to himself knowing that such an outcome was impossible.

Harry was just finishing off his treacle when sparks erupted from the Goblet, causing the buzz to disappear. As the sparks faded, a small, burnt piece of parchment was visible. Dumbledore grabbed it and read in a strong, clear voice, "The champion of Beauxbatons is Delacour," a blond girl at the Ravenclaw table began to rise, "Gabrielle."

Fleur collapsed back into the bench at the Ravenclaw table as the Hogwarts and Durmstrang students began to cheer. The color had completely drained from Fleur's face as the rest of the Beauxbaton contingent started to become restless.

"Gabrielle Delacour, if you could please stand and make your way to the room beside the dining hall?" Dumbledore asked upon seeing that no one was moving. The applause died down as the rest of the students began to realize something was wrong.

"Dumbly-dorr, what is the meaning of this!" Madam Maxine demanded. "How did a girl not even in school have her name selected?"

"I assure you, Madame—" Dumbledore was cut off as sparks began to fly once again from the Goblet. He turned away from the enraged headmistress and snatched the parchment out of the air.

"The champion for Hogwarts is…" Dumbledore paused, not believing what he saw on the sheet in front of him. "Dennis Creevey."

The room was silent aside from applause from Dennis' brother Colin and Harry. As Dennis made his way forward to the head table, he was caught by Professor McGonagall and held back from entering the side room.

"Bloody hell!" Ron exclaimed loudly. Looking a bit sheepish as everyone looked at him for his outburst, he muttered to Harry, "What's going on?"

"Well, Ron, Dennis was just chosen by the Goblet of Fire," Harry unhelpfully explained. "Unlike the rest of you lot, I'm applauding our fellow Gryffindor."

Harry's response quickly spread along the table, and before long, a few additional claps started filling the hall before everyone at the Gryffindor table was cheering for the youngest Creevey at Hogwarts.

Before Dennis could be too embarrassed by the attention, the Goblet began sparking again. Dumbledore and the rest of the tournament organizers were already at a loss, seeing two children entered into the competition. The sparks had pulled Dumbledore from his trance long enough to snatch the last piece of parchment from the air.

As Dumbledore read the parchment, everyone could see him resign himself to the final announcement. "The champion for Durmstrang is Dobby the house elf."

At the call of his name, the house elf appeared before Dumbledore. "Professor Dumbledore called Dobby?"

"Yes, Dobby. Could you please stand over there next to the young Mr. Creevey and Professor McGonagall?"

As Dobby moved to fulfill the request, pandemonium broke out in the dining hall. The headmasters and tournament organizers swarmed toward Dumbledore to find out what had caused such ineligible champions to be selected. Simultaneously, the student populations began shouting out the same questions.

Such was the chaos that most of the room missed the Goblet of Fire sparking once more. Dumbledore practically radiated raw magic as he yelled out, "Quiet!" The room instantly silenced.

Dumbledore grabbed the parchment and glanced down at it before looking back up at the Gryffindor table. He cleared his throat and read out—

" _Harry Potter._ "

* * *

"Dobby cannot compete against the great Harry Potter!" Dobby exclaimed loudly to the smaller gathering of people. Dumbledore had managed to wrangle enough order from the students and faculty to get just those directly involved in the discussion to move to the room beside the dining hall.

That group of people consisted of those that had their names' drawn, the schools' headmasters, the Ministry employees, and the oddball collection of Hogwarts professors. The only exception to this list was Fleur who was representing her little sister. Harry did his best to ignore the dung beetle, Rita Skeeter, attached to the back of his robes.

After Snape had performed his obligatory threat to see Harry expelled from Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore had asked Harry if he had entered his name into the Goblet. With a straight face, Harry was able to truthfully state that he had not. Thankfully no one had thought to ask him if he knew _how_ his or anyone else's name had been entered, so he had been able to avoid lying.

The night the Goblet was set up in the entrance hall, Harry had been waiting under his invisibility cloak. By hiding underneath it on the other side of the Goblet from Professor Dumbledore, he had been able to hide and already be on the inside of the Age Line as it was placed. As he never crossed in toward the Goblet, the Age Line never triggered. Thankfully, no one had thought to check for him being there.

Once everyone had left, Harry took a page from Barty Crouch Jr's playbook and placed a powerful Confundus Charm on the Goblet of Fire. The charm caused the Goblet to forget it should allow additional entries after he had entered the names for the three school champions. Harry had considered making it so his name wasn't selected, but then he wouldn't have been in this room where he could keep the adults from deciding to force the youngsters into performing the three chosen tasks. So, he let Junior enter him into the tournament.

Harry shook off his reminiscence to find a lull in the argument. "If I can make a suggestion?" he interjected. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Even expecting how much this would affect them all, he was still surprised by the degree of hostility directed toward him. "I think we can all agree with Mr. Crouch that we have to be involved in a competition. However, I'm guessing that we could redefine what the 'official' competition is. Rather than having us compete in the originally designed tasks, I propose we change the tasks for the champions chosen by the Goblet."

Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman looked a bit put out by the suggestion, likely because changing the tasks would involve drastic changes to things that had already been paid for by the Ministry.

Heading this off, Harry continued, "I'm not suggesting we do away with the original tasks, only that those chosen against their will by the Goblet participate in a separate competition. The original tasks could be performed by those that actually want to compete; perhaps the headmasters of each school could just choose one of their students rather than using the Goblet."

Karkaroff sneered at Harry. "And what would those students be competing for since the Galleon prize is tied to the Triwizard Tournament?"

Harry shrugged. "We could offer something else for those chosen by the Goblet. I know I'd rather not participate in tasks meant for 17-year-olds. What about you, Dennis?" Dennis shook his head. "Dobby? Fleur, do you want your sister competing in the original tasks?" Both agreed with Harry that they would prefer to avoid such a scenario.

"How about we offer something else to the Goblet-chosen champions? For example, I could offer a limited favor to the winner."

This time Snape was the one to call out the potential issue, "And what if you win, Potter?"

Harry grinned. "Oh, I guarantee that I won't win."

"How are you going to do zat, Mr. Potter?" Madame Maxime asked.

"By ensuring that my performance is the bare minimum needed to achieve participation in whatever contest is held."

A brief discussion went around the room between the tournament organizers. Listening in, Harry could tell that they were listening to common sense—something of a rarity in his experience, especially with Ministry employees. Finally, they agreed to look at re-choosing the champions.

"You seem to have all of the answers here, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Do you already have a suggestion on what tasks the Goblet-chosen champions should compete in?" Dumbledore was looking at him over the rim of his glasses.

Harry gulped, maybe he had tipped his hand too far, and Dumbledore was on to him. However, at this point, he had come too far to settle. "Maybe a writing competition. Have us write short stories for each round of the competition using fictional tasks. For example, the first round could have a champion fighting a dragon." Harry tapped a finger to his chin while the organizers looked a bit surprised. "No, that'd be too easy. How about a story about a champion stealing an egg from a nesting mother dragon?"

Fleur scoffed at the idea. "Zere is no way such a zing would be a task," she said, missing the organizers' looks of disbelief at Harry's describing the planned first task.

Harry shrugged again. "Another idea would be to have us act as journalists for the main competition, where the winner's article gets published in the Daily Prophet. Anyway, our writing could be scored out of ten based on things like characterization, creativity, flow, and originality. If needed, I bet we could get someone like Rita Skeeter to act as the judge and editor, leaving all of you free to concentrate on the primary competition."

Harry felt the dung beetle's wings flutter on his back from Rita's agitation at him volunteering her for work. He had to work hard to suppress his smile at her discomfort. She should just be glad he let her into the meeting at all; though she didn't know that it was Harry's plan all along for her to be present. She would act as an unknowing safeguard to ensure that children were not going to be entered into the main competition.

After some final discussions, the schools' heads and the Ministry personnel agreed to Harry's proposal. The Goblet-chosen champions would act as journalists for the main competition, and the Daily Prophet would be asked to officiate.

* * *

 _Eight months later_

Dumbledore stood at the front of the dining hall. "It is my great pleasure to announce that the winner of the Triwizard Tournament is Hogwarts' own Cedric Diggory!" Applause and cheering filled the hall. "Additionally, I'd like to congratulate Dobby for his victory in the writing competition while representing Durmstrang. I think we can all agree that we did not see such a dramatic turn of events coming.

"Mr. Diggory, if you would please come up front," Dumbledore directed. Cedric stood from the Hufflepuff table and approached the head table to sounds of cheering and applause from everyone in the dining hall.

Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, smiled and handed Cedric the Triwizard Cup along with the 1000 Galleon prize money. Cedric then shook the hands of all of the headmasters before returning to his seat to a standing ovation.

"Dobby," Dumbledore called. The elf appeared with a pop before the headmaster. "Congratulations on your victory. You have won a favor from Harry, so choose wisely."

"Yes, sir, Professor Dumbledore. Dobby knows just what to ask for. He will ask Harry Potter later, if that's okay with Professor Dumbledore."

"Very well, Dobby. Congratulations again."

Dobby popped away, ignoring the applause.

Harry was pleased with himself; he had successfully saved Cedric's life. While he was a bit concerned about what Dobby might ask for, things were looking much better now than his last time through his fourth year.


End file.
